Senior Scene

By ANDREW HOLZMAN The question I’m probably asked most, and yet am least prepared to answer, is, “Why did you get started working with seniors?” When it comes to the work I’m doing in Chicago, the answer is actually easy. Last Christmas, it felt very strange not having someone to plan a holiday party for,(…)

By ANDREW HOLZMAN According to the Illinois Department on Aging (IDoA), 11,840 reports of elder abuse were received by state authorities in fiscal year 2012. Study after study has shown that many more cases go unreported. In some of those 11,840 reported cases, the neglect or abuse was willful. That someone would take advantage of(…)

By ANDREW HOLZMAN This week’s Senior Scene is going to be a risk taker. I’m going to head into territory covered with potential clichés like a mine field, a topic so overplayed that it has become the “Pachelbel’s Cannon” of discussions about aging: using the Internet. There are actually two aspects to a discussion about(…)

By ANDREW HOLZMAN My grandmother and I were coming back from our weekly walk together to the grocery store, having scoured the free samples and bought some of the cookies I liked, when she had her first bad fall. It happened more quickly than I could watch it, and ten-year-old me was terrified. Does this(…)

By Andrew Holzman Montgomery Place, 5550 South Shore Drive, is a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). CCRCs address the entire process of aging, from complete independence graduating to acute care, in one facility. Outside of CCRCs, there are probably about as many living options available specifically to seniors as there are to the general population,(…)

By Andrew Holzman The Chicago Hyde Park Village (CHPV), one of the three organizations hosting me as I write this column series, is the local product of a national movement. Throughout the United States, you can find “villages,” groups of seniors who have come together to help each other age actively. Members of a village(…)

By ANDREW HOLZMAN You know the image well: an elderly man or woman sits at home, perhaps watching television, alone and depressed. This vision for retirement saturates our culture — we see the “crazy cat lady” trope repeated on television, and comments we make in passing reveal a view of getting old that seems primarily(…)

By ANDREW HOLZMAN I am an 18-year-old rising sophomore at the University of Chicago, and this is the first in my summer series of columns on aging and retirement in Hyde Park. This summer, I am working for two organizations devoted to seniors, as well as continuing my work writing at the Hyde Park Herald.(…)

Worship. Open Space. 11:30 a.m.-noon, every Wednesday, Bond Chapel, 1050 E. 59th St., 773-702-8200. A brief worship service co-sponsored by the U. of C. Divinity School and Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, and planned by a student-led(...)